CANBERRA  Anti-whaling nations will struggle to stop a resumption of commercial whaling when the International Whaling Commission votes on the issue in June, Australian Environment Minister Ian Campbell said on Thursday.

Campbell said whaling nation Japan secured majority support at the last IWC meeting in South Korea in June 2005 for its plan to resume commercial whaling, but that not all the countries in favour turned up to the vote, so the proposal was knocked down.

"I really do think there's a serious chance that Iceland, Norway and Japan will have the numbers to defeat our pro-conservation majority we achieved last year in Korea," Campbell told reporters.

"We are working very hard to stop that from happening."

In 1986, the IWC imposed a blanket moratorium on whaling, but Japan began what it calls scientific whaling the following year. Norway broke the moratorium in 1993 and is currently the only nation to permit open commercial whaling.

Iceland, like Japan, conducts scientific whaling. These whaling states say whaling is a cherished part of their culture.